Just One Drop: Dreadful Homeopathy Propaganda

Curzon Cinema yet again screening a dreadful quack film.

Homeopaths are launching a new film about homeopathy. As you can see from the trailer above, this is a film that sets out to ‘educate and promote’ homeopathy to the world. It is conspiratorial in tone and credulous in its presentation and shows disgusting quackery being sold to parents of children with autism.

I have not been able to see the whole film yet – but the trailer clearly shows its misleading intent. Even the title is misleading. Homeopathy is a magic ritual masquerading as medicine. Most notably, the remedies do not contain any actual active ingredients – they are just sugar pills or water/ethanol mixtures. Any ingredients are diluted to the point where no original material can remain. “Just One Drop” should in reality be called “Not Even One Drop”. The trailers shows some of the magic ritual being enacted in the first ten seconds as the ‘remedy’ is repeatedly struck against a leather bound book – most often a Bible – as the inventor of this nonsense prescribed.

The film is made by Laurel Chiten – a filmmaker who says she believes she is telling a ‘David and Goliath’ story. Inherent in the homeopath mindset is the idea that they are suppressed by ‘Big Pharma’ and maligned by a dominant medical modality. Utter nonsense, of course but it looks like this film follows this well-trodden conspiratorial path. Chiten has previously made a film about alien abduction – so she is familiar with the world of barmpottery.

Just One Drop tells a no-holds-barred look at the most controversial form of medicine ever invented. Homeopathy treats the entire person, not just the disease. It’s a specific form of medicine that uses minute doses of a highly diluted substance that stimulates the body to cure itself. It is these tiny doses that causes the most controversy. Researchers believe there is a release of energy in water that becomes mysteriously dynamic. Others think it’s purely psychological or worse, a form of deception or quackery. Yet millions claim homeopathy cures even though there is not yet a satisfying scientific explanation. It remains a mystery.

‘Treating the entire person, not just the disease’ is part of the meaningless mythology of homeopaths that is routinely trotted out. Any credible critique of homeopathy would not accept that as undisputed fact. Homeopathy does not ‘stimulate the body to cure itself’ since no cure can be demonstrated. There are not ‘tiny doses’ – homeopathy is ‘no doses’. Only propagandists and buffoons think homeopathy is ‘a release of energy’. This is pure pseudoscience without a scrap of evidence or rationale. There is not yet ‘a satisfying scientific explanation’ because there is nothing that needs to be explained. Until such time as homeopathy can produce consist and coherent evidence there is nothing to explain.

Now, of course, homeopaths have a right to make a film and to screen it. But this film should be recognised for what it is: propaganda. It sets out with a mission to “give homeopathy a voice, a voice that continues to be misinterpreted and misrepresented.” This is inspite of the fact that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that homeopathy is a placebo treatment that cannot treat any condition. This consensus is based on homeopathy’s claims that are thoroughly implausible and contradict the well established results of physics, chemistry and biology, and the lack of convincing and coherent evidence from the large number of clinical trials that have been conducted. Homeopathy is a pre-scientific view of medicine based on magical thinking – it has no role in the treatment of evidence. As propaganda, this film misleads people. If people were to take their claims seriously and treat illness that really should be treated by a doctor, they could be harmed.

Despite the placebo nature of homeopathy, it can still be deadly. Homeopaths have grandiose views of their capabilities and have no hesitation in treating people with serious and deadly condition. If a person were to use homeopathy in lieu of real effective medicine, they could die. Homeopaths in the UK support and promote ‘missionary’ homeopaths who travel to developing countries to set up clinics to treat HIV and malaria and to work in disaster zone. These practices are lethal. The PR group that is hosting the premier, 4Homeopathy, is associated with groups that support homeopathy clinics in Africa treating deadly disease.

Incredibly, the premier of the film is at the London West End Curzon Cinema. This film was supposed to also be the host of the dreadful Andrew Wakefield quack film about vaccines and autism – VAXXED. The Curzon saw sense and dropped the film. It is amazing that they have not reviewed their procedures about what sort of private screenings they show. Any due diligence on this film would have raised serious questions about the ethics of screening such a film.

There are many planned screenings of this film in the UK and around the world. Each screening appears to be managed by local homeopathy groups and many are in their own facilities or ‘village hall’ type set ups. Great. It is a shame though that some commercial cinemas seek to profit from this deadly nonsense. Along with the Curzon, the Komedia Cinema in Brighton is hosting the film and a follow up ‘Q&A’ with the film maker.

Homeopathy thrives because society shrugs and tolerates quackery. We do not think about the consequences on individual lives of misleading claims and ineffective treatments. We treat homeopathy as an eccentric hobby rather than a menace. Quackery like homeopathy should be as socially unacceptable as drink driving. There are consequences to irrational beliefs and commercial organisations should decide whether they too will turn a blind eye or take a stance and stand up for evidence, reason and proper informed choice in healthcare.

On this theme…

156 Comments on Just One Drop: Dreadful Homeopathy Propaganda

Homeopathy in the UK does not “thrive”. Any analysis of figures or reading reports that are in public domain suggest it is shrinking in the UK. It is worth looking at, for example, NHS spending figures that the Nightingale Collaboration managed to obtain. The Society of Homeopaths most recent submission to the Professional Standards Authority cited declining membership as a risk to their existance. It’s a fringe activity that is in slow decline.

Ah my friend, As an RN I discovered homeopathy 18 years ago and cured recurrent colds and bronchitis and then became a homeopath using it effectively for myself, my family and friends. The science is there if you want to see it and more than that if you study it you will see it and even more than that if you use it intelligently you will benefit.

Until you try homeopathy you should not comment. The above post sounds ignorant.
I have been treated fir skin conditions,grief and very bad pms with homeopathy and havd had fantastic results.All of these problems were untreatable with conventional medicine!
What does this suggest?

No, what this means is that this person experienced some benefit which they attribute to homeopathy. However, their experience cannot be extrapolated to the response others can expect to get from the same treatment (if indeed two ‘doses’ of homeopathic remedy can ever be considered to be the same in the way that 2 doses of allopathic medication would be considered equivalent).

I totally agree. Its big pharma they need to take a closer look at. I have also used homeopathics for years with complete sucess. If it isnt dangerous its not healthy according to them this article is frustrating to say the least.

You think that alternative medicine is any different to big Pharma? It is worth billions, and they operate on the profit motive just like any other business. It’s not as if they’re giving their remedies away for nothing. Which they pretty much damn well should do because there is nothing in them :).

Lol.. ignorance at its best right here. Poisen toxic synthetic drugs are whats dangerous and are what have killed thousands each year. HOMEOPATHY has worked, Is working and well continue to work. It will become the number one medicine people turn to in the coming years. You can quack on all you like. It makes me laugh that these people who are so against himeopathy havev never actually tried it but feel they can have such an oponion. Like I said just keep quacking on.

Like thousands if not hundreds of thousands or more people haven’t died from homeopathic and other voodoo crap. I am going to take a wild stab here and say that most deaths from taking allopathic meds is due to not being taken as directed.

Your argument is completely invalid until we see “real” studies on these substances which neither you nor any of your other cultists can produce. All you can provide is hearsay and third (or fourth or fifth)-party accounts. You talk about “big pharma” which I agree sucks in many ways but it cannot beat the witch doctors who promise cures for everything from eczema to cancer and then go on to fleece millions of dollars from desperate people.

There is so much of hatred and venom in the post. Lacks logic and provides unfounded judgements without merits. I am wondering if the author has the guts to question money making pharma companies’ practices to push so many dangerous medicines without real benefits to people?

People attack when they feel threatened. I practiced homeopathy for 10 years and saw how amazing it is. It even works on pets and farm animals, oh that blows the placebo theory away. How can you criticize something you have not tried, sad. I guess these sceptics are mainly young recently graduated medical practitioners or students. Wake up, big pharma is behind this, because it works and take money away from the billions they already make.

Paul – you are mistaken about homeopathy. Your personal interpretations of your subjective experiences as a homeopath do not trump the overwhelming scientific evidence that homeopathy is inert and cannot treat illness. You have failed to accommodate the very many subjective biases that people are prone to when assessing cause and effect in medicine. That is why scientific medicine exists. You clearly also have not engaged with the critiques if homeopathy otherwise you would know that the farm animal argument is a canard and easily dismissed. And you also fall into the common trap of protecting your false beliefs from counter argument by projecting belittling beliefs about your critics and wrapping yourself in conspiracy theory.

No, I am not a young, recent medical grad. I am an OAP who, at one time, permitted himself to be gulled by touts for this pseudomedicine.

If the touts for homeopathy want to lay this matter to rest for once and for all, all they need to do is to cite one (yes, just one) replicated robust-quality DBRCT that demonstrates that homeopathy is distinguishable from placebo.

Surely, with a history of over 200 years, it shouldn’t be that difficult?

Then I remember that these are the charlatans who would have us believe that, if you take a substance that has a concentration of one molecule of the original “active ingredient” per sphere the size of Earth’s orbit around the Sun and then dilute it even further, so that the concentration is now less than one molecule per known Universe, it has somehow become more potent.

The British Medical Journal is fairly reputable. http://www.bmj.com/content/321/7259/471
And it wasn’t difficult to find – surprising what you can find if you just type a few key words into Google.
Ah, but I see you want the study findings to be replicated – so this probably doesn’t reach the threshold after all

Do you think the number of participants was enough to draw meaningful conclusions.

Do you think people got better on the trials if they took homeopathy?

If you ask yourself any of these questions with any seriousness you can only come to the conclusion that is junk science. Patients got worse with homeopathy – this is explained away as ‘aggregations’ – every result is positive for homeopathy! Always.

The conclusions of the trial reflect the worsening of conditions for some patients – ‘homoeopathic dilutions differ from placebo”. Note that the conclusions do not say that homeopathy relieved symptoms – because to results were too poor to say this.

In any small trial, you will see differences between arms of the trial – especially if you measure many things. Utter junk I am afraid.

I don’t know whether to feel sorry for these people or angry. I just read an article about a young lady with Hodgkins being treated by a Florida dr. (who finally lost his license), who has died in 2013 as a result of his quackery. Unfortunately, he’ll move on and continue with this horse shit. So yeah, I guess I am angry.

The % seems to be incorrect.
The correct tabulated data shows medicine promoted by Andy Lewis killed and maimed 43 million people worldwide in 2012. Figures for 2016 would be much higher. In the USA medical errors is the 3rd major reason for people dying in 2015. This year it would be the 2nd most important reason.
This data is for dead in the hospitals. Those who end up dead in homes because of medical errors is additional.

99.8%?? Sorry to disappoint you, but actually 100% of people die, whether they use chemo or homeopathy! But just because one event follows another does not mean the first caused the second. This fallacy may lie behind some of the assertions along the lines of “I had some homeopathic remedy and later my pain / rash / sore throat etc got better so homeopathy must be the reason for the improvement” Sometimes these symptoms would simply improve with the passage of time, even in the absence of any treatment. Many people who take allopathic medicines get better by exactly the same process, which is why it is so important to test the treatment against a placebo – to see if the treatment is better than the (say) 30% who improve with placebo alone.

When you read these notes on death due to homeopathy, go through it another time closely. You will see an Andy Lewis behind it. Look more closely and the truth would be startling: homeopathy would have nothing to do with it. Then Google the reference for “Modern Medicine” for similar cases. You would find thousands of dead bodies.

Google is one of the neutral sources that puts in all the information at one place. Then one can shift through the details.

There are many others: [link to McTaggart’s blog]

Google rankings depend on things like popularity, not veracity. To counteract that, Google takes action now to counter misinformation and promote information from reliable sources, particularly on things like health. That will not please quacks.

Seriously, there is nothing that homeopathy can treat that unicorn tears can’t treat faster and more effectively. My wife lost her left leg (I know, bloody careless!) in a car crash. A 3-day course of unicorn tears later, and she was fully bipedally ambulatory! My son’s pet guinea-pig (Gertie) died. We buried it next to the compost heap, Our family Lacrimal Monocerotist suggested irrigating the grave with unicorn tears. Gertie recovered and, 20 years later, she is still a treasured family pet. Eat your hearts out, homeopathists!

You seem to have no other work left than just offending and writing madly on homoeopathy. If you are so free, write what evidence you have on best cures by “conventional” medicine rather wasting time and energy on something you yourself have zero belief. Clearly your article signifies that you do not know what is “evidence” is all about, and you stay with same old school thoughts. You are neither a drug inspector nor an authority to report on this- so your own article itself shows “meaningless scribbles” and “lack of character”- so at least you do not talk of “evidence”, and come on…. do not judge a system of medicine just based on some random video.

This is my messege to whomsoever have posted about….. homoeopathy ….is false….u are not having right to comment negative about homoeopathy until n unless u have studied or understood or experienced the treatment……..it’s a true scientific…rationalized and the most innovative..updated pathy.. close to nature…millions n trillions of patients are being benefited by homeopathy daily….confirm from them….or call me 9923130826 but.dont give pessimistic comments..

Why are you so angry on it if it doesn’t work at all? There is a propaganda against homeopathy actually. As said it the video , nothing works all the time and with everyone! I think some basic questions are being asked in the video which need answers from the anti homeopathic team. We have seen positive results, when conventional medicines FAILED. At least for animals and kids you can not justify the “placebo” theory. It’s ok to question, to argue or to demand answers. But to spread hatred, is not fair.

Homeopathy is one of the advanced healing modality and based on quantum physics and nanotechnology.the whole concevable matter of the earth can be reduced to pea.is proved by quantum physics,which says 99 percent of matter is pure energy.

Atomic energy r all based on energy inside a single atom which is eqivalent to burning 200tons of carbon.
Homeopathy works on similar lines.
Please dont spread false information .95percent of cancer pt die because of chemo and radiation ,is written by allopathic doctors .
This is a harmless form of treatment .What more is that it works not only on humans but also animals.
And it’s not a placebo

So Andy, this blog has an interesting meter. When one actually penetrates the smokescreen illusion, one goes into moderation! Is this how you keep your fallacy alive? So looking forward to meeting you in public at one of your events to discuss you medical paradigm fallacy – won’t be able to moderate then will you!

I love the quantum. As soon as quantum physics appeared it became the answer to everything. Largely due to Depak Chopra I think. And now nanotechnology has appeared. And none of them know anything about either of them.

To realise the goal health for all, more funds for homeopathic research may be a good option. It has the potential to cure a lot many people including those who are guided by a pre-conceived notion and looks nowhere else.

The fact that even when you cannot explain it scientific ally, there are so many well educated and informed people who use homeopathy and benefit from it must make you want to try it before you write anything on your blog. All are not fools.

I read this blog sometimes and always get something from it but this piece really made me think and brought up some questions.
You mention how homeopathy can do harm and is maybe even killing people. Is there any scientific research which shows the scale of this? I occasionally see a tragic case in the papers and I have seen ‘what’s the harm’ website, but aren’t those cases anecdotal evidence like homeopaths use to claim their cures? Also when people go on about drugs harming and killing we can accept those tragedies by balancing with the benefit. Shouldn’t we take into account the reality of the placebo effect and the time homeopaths give listening to people having positive effects and balance that against the harm as well?

In cases where talking to people don’t have any effect on the underlying cause (such as cancer and infections) there is no positive effect to balance against the harm. Balancing is not done on modality it is done on cases. We already have positive scientific strategies for those cases where a caring and listening practitioner is effective – it is covered by psychology and psychiatry. The only difference is that most of them understand where talking is not enough and that pills with fanciful names but no content can’t exert physiological effects.

There are lots of famous doctors and nurse murderers, ie Crippin, Shipman – the latter passed his GMC audit as safe to practice, 2 weeks before being arrested by police for mass murder! Safe in their hands! You gotta be kidding, next they will be pushing mass compulsory vaccination and it will descend into total stupid

Newby, medicine in the US is the third leading cause of death after heart attacks and cancer, and that is being on the correct medication ie presciption. Painkillers in the US combined ie opiate and NSAID’s kill almost 60,000 people alone. Homeopathy death doesn’t even feature on the radar with those comparisons. Studies have shown that when doctors strike the death rate goes DOWN and that isn’t just cancelling elective surgery.

But please detail the numbers of lives saved by conventional medicine, the number of people living longer and with a higher quality of life because of conventional medicine, the number of babies who survive birth because of conventional medicine and the number of those who are suffering less and in less pain because of conventional medicine.

And then give the same numbers for homeopathy so we can make a proper comparison.

“But please detail the numbers of lives saved by conventional medicine…………………..ng less and in less pain because of conventional medicine.”

This is ONE BIG LIE. The crude drugs used as medicine are responsible for the problems.

“Yet recently, just within the past few decades, amid all of these medical advances, something has gone terribly wrong. In many different ways we appear to be getting sicker. You can see the headlines every day. We are suffering from a mysterious array of what I call “modern plagues”: obesity, childhood diabetes, asthma, hay fever, food allergies, esophageal reflux and cancer, celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, autism, eczema. In all likelihood you or someone in your family or someone you know is afflicted. Unlike most lethal plagues of the past that struck relatively fast and hard, these are chronic conditions that diminish and degrade their victims’ quality of life for decades.”
“The reasons for this disaster are all around you, including overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals, Cesarian sections, and the widespread use of sanitizers and antiseptics, to name just a few. While antibiotic resistance is a huge problem—old killers like tuberculosis are increasingly resistant and making a comeback—there now seem to be separate ones, affecting people with such scourges as Clostridium difficile (C. diff), bacteria of the digestive tract resistant to multiple antibiotics, a potential danger in the hospital, and a spreading pathogen, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which can be acquired anywhere. The selective pressure of antibiotic use is clearly increasing their presence. ”
Read Dr. Martin Blaser

Dear someone. You misunderstand then. Homeopathy is inert. It has no direct effects. It’s only effects can then be indirect and there are then good rational reasons to understand how harm will be done if it is used in place of effective treatments.

Yes you’re right, neglect, irresponsibly practioners who don’t know their boundaries cause problems. But we’re told by the homeopaths that large numbers of people use it and feel some sort of benefit whether placebo, time and attention or whatever. All I’m saying is that unless you have an Ernstproof study showing that harm really is significant you’re working with anecdotes just like them.

Happened to bump into the M.D. of WAB (Wallgreen, Alliance Boots) at a business conference the other day. During her presentation she claimed that all they do is based on science..After I collared her and asked her if I had heard correctly. She then slightly shifted her position to something along lines of ” mostly”. I then asked whether they would stop selling homeopathy since it has zero evidence base and she firmly said “No” and walked off. while major companies still promote and sell this nonsense we have a battle still to fight as they give credibility to bs.

Homeopathy, astrology, numerology, psychic healing and wishful thinking can all be lumped together.
I wish these followers would stop going to the same sources to validate their stand and try some other sources like for example: skeptic.com .
.
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
(attributed to George Carlin AND Mark Twain AND Proverbs 26:4 !- even Google can’t tell me definitively!)

Don’t forget chiropractic “medicine”. I was a victim of this quackery a couple of years ago. No excuse except a feeling of desperation after many ortho and pain manangement visits before finally finding an ortho doc who found the problem in one visit. I rejoice for each “school” that is shut down.

Why is flu vaccine any different to homeopathy, I mean all the studies on flu vaccine show it is useless and it is full of utter garbage, even Cocraine who did the longest ever study ie 96 season flu vaccine study – concluded that flu vaccine was implausible at best and we should not be wasting £18 million a year of NHS money. The dept of health replied – “It makes old people feel more comfortable they have done something!” I mean that has to be far more disgusting than homeopathy Andy, surely, and the tax payer is paying for it.

“Why is flu vaccine any different to homeopathy,”
Because good evidence shows that the flu vaccine has (albeit small) benefits and no harms. It therefore has a greater balance of benefit to harm than homeopathy, which has zero benefit.

“I mean all the studies on flu vaccine show it is useless and it is full of utter garbage”
That is quite simply not true, is it? In fact, far from being “all the studies”, I would venture that the truth is that none of the studies shows what you assert.

“even Cocraine who did the longest ever study ie 96 season flu vaccine study – concluded that flu vaccine was implausible at best and we should not be wasting £18 million a year of NHS money.”
That isn’t true either, it’s it? If you wish to continue to pretend that either of your assertions is true, all you need to do is cite.

However, this is all a red herring, isn’t it, in a ham-fisted effort to distract from the simple fact that there isn’t even one replicated robust DBRCT that demonstrates unequivocally that homeopathy is distinguishable from placebo.

I can indeed understand it. You clearly did not. The clue was in the conclusion:
“…we should maintain public support for present vaccines that are the best intervention available for seasonal influenza.”

Your other link points to a review of cherry-picked literature (clue: no mention of criteria for inclusion). Classy!

INDIA
“Government needs to take a dynamic approach in its endeavors to reduce its wasteful exercises and to save hard earned public money.”
In consideration of future redundancy, it is a necessary step for India to expeditiously upscale its manufacturing and marketing practices.

Conclusion
“A cocktail of pandemic panic, publicity propaganda, and scientific misconduct turned a new medicine with only modest efficacy into a blockbuster. It appears that the multiple regulatory checks and balances gave way as science lost its primacy and pharmaceutical enterprise lost no time in making the most of it. This reminds one of Prof R. P. Feynman’s statements after Challenger space shuttle disaster.
“Reality must take precedence over public relations as nature can’t be fooled”.

REUTERS
“There is no credible way these drugs could prevent a pandemic,” said Carl Heneghan, one of the lead investigators of the review and a professor of evidence-based medicine at Britain’s Oxford University.
The review’s main findings were that the medicines had few if any beneficial effects, but did have adverse side effects that were previously dismissed or overlooked.
“Remember, the idea of a drug is that the benefits should exceed the harms,” Heneghan said. “So if you can’t find any benefits, that accentuates the harms.”

You should also note that “medical error” includes things like failing to give medicine or giving the wrong medicine – so it would include all death caused indirectly by giving pseudomedicines like homeopathy.

“The number of funerals we have performed has fallen drastically,” said Hananya Shahor, the veteran director of Jerusalem’s Kehilat Yerushalayim burial society. “This month, there were only 93 funerals compared with 153 in May 1999, 133 in the same month in 1998, and 139 in May 1997,” he said. The society handles 55% of all deaths in the Jerusalem metropolitan area. Last April, there were only 130 deaths compared with 150 or more in previous Aprils. “I can’t explain why,” said Mr Shahor.
Meir Adler, manager of the Shamgar Funeral Parlour, which buries most other residents of Jerusalem, declared with much more certainty: “There definitely is a connection between the doctors’ sanctions and fewer deaths. We saw the same thing in 1983 [when the Israel Medical Association applied sanctions for four and a half months].”

Iqbal Krishna, you initially claimed: “In the USA medical errors is the 3rd major reason for people dying in 2015”

I asked you for evidence for that claim. In your gish-gallop reaction, you cited two opinion pieces (Clue #1: opinions are not evidence), one of which referred to Israel (Clue #2: Israel is not the USA). Is this because you have no evidence for the claim that you actually made?

If the research paper of Doctors from John Hopkins published in BMJ is gish-gallop for you, you should continue with your association with allopaths and Le Canard(!). This belief in canard spread about homeopathy would lead you to be a statistic for the death and disability figure in not too distant future.
best of luck

Iqbal Krishna, you wrote: “If the research paper of Doctors from John Hopkins published in BMJ is gish-gallop for you..”
Nope, that’s not what I said. But then, you already knew that.

Yet you have *still* failed to produce even a smidgeon of evidence for your remarkably inane pronouncement: “In the USA medical errors is the 3rd major reason for people dying in 2015”. Is this because you knew it was untrue when you wrote it?

A little disappointed you didn’t conclude a little more clearly. Vague claims as “contradict the well established results of physics, chemistry and biology, and the lack of convincing and coherent evidence from the large number of clinical trials that have been conducted” is on the same level as the racistis.

Many will get the impression from this post that the scientific attitude is to see homeopathy as possibly a evil form of therapeutics. But if you had dug a little more into the utter ad-hoc excuses of its central tenets in the context of everything we know about physical – chemistry and biology of UHD, instead of merely illustrating them with images and a rapid description -the subject would be clarified. Not only is there zero scientific evidence for “debunking” doing what it claims to do.

I have used homeopathy with great success, I was a skeptic and had got no real treatment tgat stopped my ocular migraines via allopathic medicine over many years. decided I had nothing to loose except a bit of money. Saw a homeopath got some homeopathy drops within one week my migraines dropped from four times a week to one and the course continued for five weeks, The migraines stopped completely at week three. It is now some months and I have not had a return of my migraines.

It’s your illusion that allopathy is the only contractor of supplying health, just pausing the suffering / feeling of diseases for some moments and then complicating it to a graveous condition is your business. Allopathy had never eradicated any disease but just shifted it to a more complicated situation. Continued research and on going trail and errors using public money , health and happiness has just given more of hypochondriacs…

“pushing a simple disease to a complicated one by interruption of natural self healing process, which whole wild animals rely on”

Would that be the same “interruption of natural self healing process” that has seen human life expectancy soar, the elimination of smallpox, an enormous reduction in the incidence of poliomyelitis and numerous other debilitating diseases?

You are clueless.
Send one American with all possible drugs to Bangladesh to live in a slum. And send one Bangladeshi to USA with zero medicine. Let us see the increased life expectancy of the American compared to the Bangladeshi and then you write a new post on advantages of allopathic drugs. Consult Andy for reasons why the American died so early.

“…..and numerous other debilitating diseases..”
“Yet recently, just within the past few decades, amid all of these medical advances, something has gone terribly wrong. In many different ways we appear to be getting sicker. You can see the headlines every day. We are suffering from a mysterious array of what I call “modern plagues”: obesity, childhood diabetes, asthma, hay fever, food allergies, esophageal reflux and cancer, celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, autism, eczema. In all likelihood you or someone in your family or someone you know is afflicted. Unlike most lethal plagues of the past that struck relatively fast and hard, these are chronic conditions that diminish and degrade their victims’ quality of life for decades.”
Quite contrary to your information: Ask Andy for detailed information. And all these disease are caused by allopathic drugs and treatment processes.http://martinblaser.com/excerpt.html

It still amazes me how threatened western medicine is by Homeopathy. Consider this: if Homeopathy has no effectiveness and is a placebo at best, why is it we have documented cases (in our clinic and worldwide) of infants and animals getting better? Last I checked infants and animals don’t have the ability to experience a placebo effect. I also point you to the many studies that western medicine ignores. I suspect skeptics will ignore them as well but ignoring this effective therapy, and disparaging it when you know nothing about how it, dooms people to pharmaceutical drugs and their harmful side effects.

Look at our documented history by hospitals of treating epidemics. Homeopathy out performed drugs when treating Cholera, Yellow Fever, Diphtheria & Influenza.http://www.homeopathycenter.org/treatment-epidemics-homeopathy-history
“The suppressed report revealed that (for Cholera) under allopathic care the mortality was 59.2% while under homeopathic care the mortality was only 9%”

I have read at least one peer-reviewed journal article that shows that animals are susceptible to placebo. And if you think it’s so successful feel free to infect yourself with cholera and treat yourself with homeopathic remedies. I’m surprised that many of you fan boys haven’t done this already.

Really? American hospitals have records going back over 100 years of effective use of Homeopathy on major illness and all you can say is to infect yourself? I guess you’re so invested in drugs, why don’t you eat at Burger King everyday and raise your cholesterol so you can then take Lipitor. No intelligent person would believe that animals are susceptible to placebo. I challenge you to produce that “one” article and show us the methodology for getting inside an animal’s head. Are infants also susceptible? Your ignorance is astounding.

” it’s so successful feel free to infect yourself with cholera and treat yourself with homeopathic remedies. I’m surprised that many of you fan boys haven’t done this already.”
This issue was settled long back. http://homeoint.org/morrell/londonhh/outbreak.htm
“Of the 61 cases of cholera treated, 10 died, a percentage of 16.4; of the 331 cases of choleraic and simple diarrhœa trated, 1 died. The neighbouring Middlesex Hospital received 231 cases of cholera and 47 cases of choleraic diarrhœa. Of the cholera patients treated 123 died, a fatality rate of 53.2 per cent., amont the victims being one of the nurses.”

What has not changed is the attitude of the “scientific medicine” fans.
“That by introducing the returns of homœopathic practitioners they (the Treatment Committee) would not only compromise the value and utility of their averages of Cure, as deduced from the operation of known remedies, but they would give an unjustifiable sanction to an empirical practice, alike opposed to the maintenance of truth and to the progress of science.”

Thanks for the warning, but I’ve just checked the packet of paracetamol in my bathroom cabinet and it looked as serene and as unworried as it usually does. I’ll check by local pharmacy later to make sure the medicines have proper protection and are not cowering at the back of the shelves in fear. But I’m really worried now my local branch of Boots: homeopathy has infiltrated them and is sitting among the shelves of ‘Western’ medicine. What is to be done?

Since using homeopathics, I haven’t had a cold or flu in 10 years, and I don’t take the flu shot. As soon as I feel a symptom (sore throat, stuffy nose, sneezing, etc.) I take the appropriate homeopathic and the symptom never advances and goes away within hours. Call it a placebo if you like but I don’t get sick.

Robert, you wrote: “As soon as I feel a symptom (sore throat, stuffy nose, sneezing, etc.)” and followed it later with: “I don’t get sick.” Did you not realise that you described some signs and symptoms of acute rhinitis (i.e. you did get sick)?

Most of these negative resposnes are trolls who absolutely do not have your health and well being in mind. They are following the money, or should we say the threat to the loss of it. Homeopathy has helped my family enormously. In fact it is the medicine we have used for generations. We feel secure in knowing that we use remedies that are safe, have no side effects, are easy to obtain and most importanlty work so quickly to alleviate our suffering. Trolls have no clue, obviously.

You are not interested in evidence. If you were, you would spend the time reading the multiple double & triple-blind placebo controlled studies conducted over many years. We see results in our practice daily with people and pets where doctors and vets were not able to help. We also work together with doctors and vets and they are admitting homeopathy is a benefit to their patients. You need to get a life and stop wasting people’s time with your uneducated nonsense.

“They are following the money,”
Please feel free to cite your evidence for that assertion – and for the other ones you made in your post. As far as I can see, the only money involved here is that which homeopaths (you claim to be one: http://homeopathyworldcommunity.ning.com/profile/HeidiSchor ) stand to lose (*) when people wake up to the simple fact that your nostrums are based on magical thinking and are fully explained by placebo and regression to the mean.

* Must be quite a tidy profit in hawking water and/or pharmaceutically inert sugar pills to the gullible and desperate for thousands of $/£/€ per kilo.

I don’t believe that there are any replicated, robustly conducted, double- (or triple-) blinded randomised control trials that demonstrate that homeopathy is distinguishable from placebo. However, if what you imply is true, you shouldn’t have any difficulty in citing one such trial (yes, only one).

Until such time, the Nullius In Verba principle applies to your various assertions.

Is that one of your nine? A self-assessed customer satisfaction survey completed by self-selected homeopathy believers that did not measure treatment outcomes and did
not show that participants’ perceived improvement was due to any homeopathic product they
might have been given? Seriously?

It’s not my job to educate you. If you are interested, do your own research. If not, don’t. I personally see people’s lives become better through Homeopathy on a daily basis, especially children and teens. I don’t know what you do with your time.

Robert – we all know that there are a lot of studies into homeopathy. We also know that they are almost always poor quality studies with ambiguous results. That is why I asked you for a review study that systematically tries to draw conclusions from the available evidence takin into account such factors as study size, robustness and methodologies.

Oh you mean like the official studies used for FDA approvals of the hundreds of drugs that have killed thousands of people and damaged millions with their horrible side effects. Sorry, I don’t have any of those types of studies. I’ll be you even think global warming is true.

I guess the hundreds of people and pets we’ve successfully treated really weren’t because there is no systematic study to prove it. The woman’s migraines didn’t go away. The child with ADHD didn’t settle down and focus better. The anxiety and nightmares of another didn’t disappear. The rash unsuccessfully treated by a dermatologist didn’t go away. The stage 4 cancer patient didn’t get his appetite back after one session. The parrot didn’t stop biting its owner after 2 days. They all, plus hundreds more, must be deluded. The last link has tons of scientific proof you choose to ignore and I have practical real world experience with hundreds of people so I’m fine with your disbelief. Maybe you need to be fine with it and move on.

I guess the hundreds of people and pets we’ve successfully treated really weren’t because there is no systematic study to prove it. [gish-gallop snipped]

Those are merely unverified (and unverifiable) anecdotes.

So far, Robert, all you have posited in defence of homeopathy are:
* Unverifiable anecdotes
* A pretence that placebo does not work on infants or animals
* A pretence that “western medicine” is threatened by homeopathy
* A number of links, none of which is to a study that meets the criteria above

Do you really expect to convince anybody with that? Or are you merely trying to defend an income source?

Alternative medicine isn’t as big an industry as proper medicine, but then it doesn’t work. It’s still worth thirty-four billion or more a year though. Of course they give their remedies away for free, not being concerned with the profit motive at all./Sarc in case it was needed.

The funny thing is that he made many statements based on opinion as if it were fact…then he said he didn’t even watch the movie!! Ha ha ha! I think the author is afraid that homeopathy might really work but he doesn’t want to admit it. And THAT intrigues me to want to see it!